Business & Finance Economic Fallout: Pandemic, Brandon, Money Printer Go Brr, Ukraine.

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
How do you propose to do that, exactly? Just throw money in Ukraine's general direction, and hope it gets to where it's supposed to go? You're essentially arguing "we need to do something; this is something, so we need to do this!", irrespective of the efficacy of whatever "this" is. Let me reiterate; without accountability, you cannot guarantee that anything our country is doing to "help" is actually helping.
...you do realize a lot of that dollar value is the equipment we are sending over, right?

Like, do I need to go dig up a link to every piece of kit the west has sent Ukraine and it's specific combat utility, to show that we are sending meaningful weaponry over to Ukraine?

What will satisfy you that corruption is being minimized as much as it can, while not impacting the combat effectiveness of what is being sent/sold/lend-leased to Ukraine?

Because it feels like you think so long as any meaningful amount of corruption is happening, we cannot risk giving Ukraine aid and support.

And I do see plenty of evidence of our stuff being used as it was meant to be used, and you'd see it too if you actually paid attention to the invasion and DonbAss threads where there is a lot more detailed info on equipment and loses for both sides.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
...you do realize a lot of that dollar value is the equipment we are sending over, right?

Like, do I need to go dig up a link to every piece of kit the west has sent Ukraine and it's specific combat utility, to show that we are sending meaningful weaponry over to Ukraine?

What will satisfy you that corruption is being minimized as much as it can, while not impacting the combat effectiveness of what is being sent/sold/lend-leased to Ukraine?

Because it feels like you think so long as any meaningful amount of corruption is happening, we cannot risk giving Ukraine aid and support.

And I do see plenty of evidence of our stuff being used as it was meant to be used, and you'd see it too if you actually paid attention to the invasion and DonbAss threads where there is a lot more detailed info on equipment and loses for both sides.
How exactly would accounting for where all the money goes prevent us from giving aid to Ukraine? As Captain X said, they're not mutually exclusive things; so stop acting like they are, and stop brushing aside twenty billion unaccounted for dollars like it doesn't matter.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
And yet when Rand Paul objected to there not being any sort of oversight on where the money was going, he was denounced as a traitor by almost everyone on both sides of the aisle. He even got put on an official list (alongside Tulsi Gabbard and others) the Ukraine government has made of Russian propagandists.
Probably because that wasn't all he did. I actually supported him on the accountability. But then later he went on to put his foot in his mouth.

Forgive me; but it certainly seems like supporting Ukraine (or just opposing what Russia is doing there), and wanting transparency and accountability, have become mutually exclusive things.
No, not really. It's just that for some of us our support for Ukraine isn't hinging on it, and for others it is just a pretense. You, for example, have never supported Ukraine's right to defend itself, and it was pretty obvious that your only real reasoning behind that was because the leftists support Ukraine. It seems pretty transparent to me that their real interest is in the gas fields that Ukraine discovered, which is also probably one of the biggest motives for Russia to attack Ukraine. Now this issue with money is giving you something to latch on to so you actually sound halfway reasonable instead of just the obvious kneejerking you were doing before. :cautious: Meanwhile, people like myself support Ukraine's right to exist, and do not want to see Russia's aggression go unchecked because we know it would not stop with Ukraine.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
How exactly would accounting for where all the money goes prevent us from giving aid to Ukraine? As Captain X said, they're not mutually exclusive things; so stop acting like they are, and stop brushing aside twenty billion unaccounted for dollars like it doesn't matter.

This is dishonest. He's said directly that he'd like both, but he prioritizes Ukraine being able to win the war.

What will satisfy you that corruption is being minimized as much as it can, while not impacting the combat effectiveness of what is being sent/sold/lend-leased to Ukraine?

We know that this isn't the case too, since Congress has actively resisted building in methods for pro-active anti-corruption work.


But then, the root problem is the corruption in congress and the federal bureaucracy in and of itself. Part of what annoys me about this argument, is how people who claim to be anti-corruption here, act like the corrupt people wouldn't find another way to shuffle money around if they weren't using Ukraine as an excuse.

At least this way we get some measurable benefits out of it, those being Ukraine remaining an independent nation, and the Russian war machine getting smashed.

How the heck is a war supposed to purge corruption? Wars are a breeding ground for it; and so far, I've seen nothing to suggest that Ukraine is an exception to the rule. Moreover, if you actually give a crap about helping Ukraine drive Russia out of it's borders, accountability should be your highest priority; because otherwise, you're essentially saying that you don't care if any of the money actually goes to fighting Russia.

Wars are not a 'breeding ground for corruption,' they're a furnace that melts things down, corrupt or uncorrupt.

It's very common in wars for peripheral corruption to be an ongoing issue. Some expense account padding, a few crates of supplies being 'creatively re-allocated' by soldiers who think they have a better idea than the quartermaster what they need, and some of that stuff ends up on the black market too. In wars that only exert a small portion of a nation's military, like what Russia was doing in Syria and Georgia, you can also have larger-scale problems, because the amount of resources available vs the resources needed is so different.

Existential wars, wars for the survival of a nation, those burn away serious corruption really damn quickly.

When your capital almost falls in the opening day of the attack, people stop tolerating corruption, and those corrupt beyond working with flee the nation because they're too self-serving to risk their necks.

When your capital is still under threat weeks in, the soldiers who are fighting on the front lines, have fought on the front lines, or will be fighting there soon, have damn strong incentives to make sure ammunition and supplies are actually getting to where they are needed. If some bureaucrat or supply officer takes a drive with an entire truck of ammo, and it comes back empty, he might just be shot on the spot when he returns

If he comes back one case shy he might get away with it, but not the kind of gross corruption that rots an army out from the inside like Russia has been facing.

We know Ukraine's military isn't corrupt to that level, because if they were, they would have collapsed almost immediately, like they did back in 2014.

We know that they aren't even close to that level, because they've been fighting damn effectively against a far larger opponent that has much more heavy equipment, even if they've been using it incompetently.

We know that there's going to be at least some level of corruption, because Ukraine has a long history of corruption, and that doesn't completely disappear overnight, even in the fires of war.

We won't know the full scale of how bad things are, until after the war, when there's time and space to look into things in more detail. Personally, that's when I expect the serious corruption to set in, as tons of money earmarked for rebuilding and given to NGOs who will do 'aid' and 'charity work' in Ukraine siphon away large amounts of cash into their own wallets.


What keeps getting me about your posting though, is that you keep pretending that all the aid sent either has or may have all gone to waste, when that is visibly untrue.

Again, victory on the field of battle is proof that significant portions of aid is being used as intended.

Why do you keep ignoring that?
 

Arch Dornan

Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
It's really bad but quite profitable if you can get in on the grift.

Yeah, the joke around here is, I want to get my wife a job at the State Agency for National Security because that way she can't tell me what she did at work.'
I think that is the MIC's grift, too.
What did you do with all that money?
Thst is top secret, lol.
 

Arch Dornan

Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Yeah, the joke around here is, I want to get my wife a job at the State Agency for National Security because that way she can't tell me what she did at work.'
I think that is the MIC's grift, too.
What did you do with all that money?
Thst is top secret, lol.
It would make a good joke. Joker is crazy enough to take on the bat but not the IRS while they can't audit the Defense department when Bats can.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
It would make a good joke. Joker is crazy enough to take on the bat but not the IRS while they can't audit the Defense department when Bats can.
The money, I got it from my 9/5 job at the DoD, inspection, honest.It is not like I am moonlighting as a gunrunning and mercenary on Latin America or anything.
:ROFLMAO:
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Probably because that wasn't all he did. I actually supported him on the accountability. But then later he went on to put his foot in his mouth.


No, not really. It's just that for some of us our support for Ukraine isn't hinging on it, and for others it is just a pretense. You, for example, have never supported Ukraine's right to defend itself, and it was pretty obvious that your only real reasoning behind that was because the leftists support Ukraine. It seems pretty transparent to me that their real interest is in the gas fields that Ukraine discovered, which is also probably one of the biggest motives for Russia to attack Ukraine. Now this issue with money is giving you something to latch on to so you actually sound halfway reasonable instead of just the obvious kneejerking you were doing before. :cautious: Meanwhile, people like myself support Ukraine's right to exist, and do not want to see Russia's aggression go unchecked because we know it would not stop with Ukraine.
You're not wrong; I never did support Ukraine's right to exist. Not after the coup at least; because I never saw the new government as Ukraine. That said though, this and that are different things. I may not support Ukraine's illegitimate government, but I sure as hell support the average Ukrainian citizen not getting blown up, raped, or whatever other horrors Russian soldiers see fit to inflict upon them. So, here's how I see it; the Ukrainian government cannot be trusted to be honest about how much money they need to drive off Russia, nor how that money is spent, and I don't trust them to not sacrifice the lives of Ukrainian citizens in order to better line their own pockets. So; we either make sure that every cent is accounted for, or accept that we're just doing this to thumb our nose at Russia and keep them in check, not because we actually give a shit about the people who are dying or worse.

And if that's the case? Then get the hell down from your high horse, because we're no better than they are.



EDIT:
Again, victory on the field of battle is proof that significant portions of aid is being used as intended.

Why do you keep ignoring that?
Because considering how incompetent the Russian military have proven themselves, it could just as easily be proof that the aid wasn't needed in the first place. Besides; victory is a cold comfort to the violated, the maimed, and the dead, and that missing twenty billion could have been spent towards ensuring there was less of them by making it come sooner.
 
Last edited:

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Because considering how incompetent the Russian military have proven themselves, it could just as easily be proof that the aid wasn't needed in the first place. Besides; victory is a cold comfort to the violated, the maimed, and the dead, and that missing twenty billion could have been spent towards ensuring there was less of them by making it come sooner.

You are demonstrating both that you do not understand how wars are fought, and that you do not understand that the sooner Ukraine liberates territory, the faster the violations, maiming, and murdering stop.

I won't even try to get at how you've swallowed Russian popaganda about 2014 again. We already know that's a futile cause.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
How exactly would accounting for where all the money goes prevent us from giving aid to Ukraine? As Captain X said, they're not mutually exclusive things; so stop acting like they are, and stop brushing aside twenty billion unaccounted for dollars like it doesn't matter.
I am not acting like giving aid to Ukraine and rooting out corruption are mutually exclusive, that is you putting words in my mouth.
You're not wrong; I never did support Ukraine's right to exist. Not after the coup at least; because I never saw the new government as Ukraine. That said though, this and that are different things. I may not support Ukraine's illegitimate government, but I sure as hell support the average Ukrainian citizen not getting blown up, raped, or whatever other horrors Russian soldiers see fit to inflict upon them. So, here's how I see it; the Ukrainian government cannot be trusted to be honest about how much money they need to drive off Russia, nor how that money is spent, and I don't trust them to not sacrifice the lives of Ukrainian citizens in order to better line their own pockets. So; we either make sure that every cent is accounted for, or accept that we're just doing this to thumb our nose at Russia and keep them in check, not because we actually give a shit about the people who are dying or worse.

And if that's the case? Then get the hell down from your high horse, because we're no better than they are.



EDIT:

Because considering how incompetent the Russian military have proven themselves, it could just as easily be proof that the aid wasn't needed in the first place. Besides; victory is a cold comfort to the violated, the maimed, and the dead, and that missing twenty billion could have been spent towards ensuring there was less of them by making it come sooner.
Notice you completely ignored MH17 being shootdown by the Kremlin's pet rebels.

Also, noticing you don't actually have any idea what the situation is like on the ground if you think that 'Russia is doing bad, thus Ukraine doesn't need as much aid.' This isn't some game where the sides have to be 'balanced'; the sooner the war is over the less suffering their will be, and if Ukraine is doing well that is all the more reason to give them more weapons, to capitalize on their momentum.

And just because you are being an lying ass about the Maidan making Zelenski's gov 'illegit', does not mean the rest of us have to humor that bullshit.

I get disliking DC, and I know there are glowie bits of the Maidain, on both sides; you think Russia didn't have agents on the ground too?

No matter how you feel about the Maidan, it does not justified the continued invasion of Ukraine, or justify the 'rebels' who shot down MH17.

I've repeatedly tried to inform your willing ignorance on the actual state of affairs on the ground, but you do not want to see it and are continuing to show you are willing to let Ukraine burn and once again suffer Russian brutality, just to spite DC.

I recognize that maybe the cultural tide is turning domestically thanks to Elon and people like Ben Shapiro/The Daily Wire, so the evil in DC may be rooted out with time.

Realize that we may be able to root the corruption out of DC with some luck, and time. We are never going to be able to change Russia away from being imperialist about it's neighbors/return to USSR/Russian Empire, we can only contain them; any change would have to come from within, and if the change in the 90's didn't do it, not sure anything will.

TL;DR: I hate DC as is, but I hate what Russia is doing in Ukraine right now MORE.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
Says the nigga arguing that the war isn't a breeding ground for corruption.

The cope is imense. Ukraine has no right to just get a free check. Claiming so is simple wishful thinking.

War is historically a breeding ground for a bunch of horrible shit including corruption the FTX thing alone shows that the dems are basically using ukraine to steal from the public purse to give it to themselves using Ukraine basically to launder money to make it happen.

So there does need to be a lot more over sight.

That said Russia is and has been a rival to the united states for generations and has been a pain in our ass ever since the communist revolution. Using Ukraine as a proxy to break them makes geo political sense but lets not pretend that gives us any moral high ground.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Says the nigga arguing that the war isn't a breeding ground for corruption.

The cope is imense. Ukraine has no right to just get a free check. Claiming so is simple wishful thinking.

Existential wars are what bring corruption to light. Either as it is forced out, or the nation rife with it finds itself getting defeated again and again.

Expeditionary wars that have little to no bearing on the nation's continued existence, that's when they're in danger of enormous corruption.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
You're not wrong; I never did support Ukraine's right to exist. Not after the coup at least; because I never saw the new government as Ukraine. That said though, this and that are different things. I may not support Ukraine's illegitimate government, but I sure as hell support the average Ukrainian citizen not getting blown up, raped, or whatever other horrors Russian soldiers see fit to inflict upon them.
So it makes perfect sense that you'd want to leave them completely at Russia's mercy. :rolleyes:
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
You are demonstrating both that you do not understand how wars are fought, and that you do not understand that the sooner Ukraine liberates territory, the faster the violations, maiming, and murdering stop.

I won't even try to get at how you've swallowed Russian popaganda about 2014 again. We already know that's a futile cause.
I think that missing twenty billion might have helped with that, but as you said; what do I know about war? Clearly, money must not be as important in fighting one as I had thought. In which case though; why are we giving give it to them in the first place?



I am not acting like giving aid to Ukraine and rooting out corruption are mutually exclusive, that is you putting words in my mouth.
Notice you completely ignored MH17 being shootdown by the Kremlin's pet rebels.

Also, noticing you don't actually have any idea what the situation is like on the ground if you think that 'Russia is doing bad, thus Ukraine doesn't need as much aid.' This isn't some game where the sides have to be 'balanced'; the sooner the war is over the less suffering their will be, and if Ukraine is doing well that is all the more reason to give them more weapons, to capitalize on their momentum.

And just because you are being an lying ass about the Maidan making Zelenski's gov 'illegit', does not mean the rest of us have to humor that bullshit.

I get disliking DC, and I know there are glowie bits of the Maidain, on both sides; you think Russia didn't have agents on the ground too?

No matter how you feel about the Maidan, it does not justified the continued invasion of Ukraine, or justify the 'rebels' who shot down MH17.

I've repeatedly tried to inform your willing ignorance on the actual state of affairs on the ground, but you do not want to see it and are continuing to show you are willing to let Ukraine burn and once again suffer Russian brutality, just to spite DC.

I recognize that maybe the cultural tide is turning domestically thanks to Elon and people like Ben Shapiro/The Daily Wire, so the evil in DC may be rooted out with time.

Realize that we may be able to root the corruption out of DC with some luck, and time. We are never going to be able to change Russia away from being imperialist about it's neighbors/return to USSR/Russian Empire, we can only contain them; any change would have to come from within, and if the change in the 90's didn't do it, not sure anything will.

TL;DR: I hate DC as is, but I hate what Russia is doing in Ukraine right now MORE.
And I've been trying to make you realize that you're missing the forest for the trees. You're obsessed with Ukraine winning the war against Russia; so much so that you don't give a shit about the consequences, and think that because I'm pointing them out and arguing we should try to minimize them means I'm taking Russia's against you. I hate what Russia is doing in Ukraine too; the difference between you and me is that I'm actually interested in stopping them, as opposed to simply getting revenge. Notice how I haven't actually been arguing we should stop sending them aid, even as I've questioned if they even need it? All I've been saying is that, if we're going to give it to them anyways, then there has to be accountability to ensure it's actually be used as intended. Otherwise, it's little more than virtue signaling.



So it makes perfect sense that you'd want to leave them completely at Russia's mercy. :rolleyes:
I'm not saying we should; I'm just saying you're a liar when you say things like "it's not like supporting Ukraine AND wanting transparency and accountability are mutually exclusive things", because that's not actually what you believe.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top